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Americans Vastly Underestimate Wealth Inequality, Support 'More Equal Distribution Of Wealth': Study
Americans vastly underestimate the degree of wealth inequality in America, and we believe that the distribution should be far more equitable than it actually is, according to a new study.
Or, as the study's authors put it: "All demographic groups -- even those not usually associated with wealth redistribution such as Republicans and the wealthy -- desired a more equal distribution of wealth than the status quo."
The report (pdf) "Building a Better America -- One Wealth Quintile At A Time" by Dan Ariely of Duke University and Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School (hat tip to Paul Kedrosky), shows that across ideological, economic and gender groups, Americans thought the richest 20 percent of our society controlled about 59 percent of the wealth, while the real number is closer to 84 percent.
More interesting than that, the report says, is that the respondents (a randomly selected 5,522-person sample, reflecting the country's ideological, economic and gender demographics, surveyed in December 2005) believed the top 20 percent should own only 32 percent of the wealth. Respondents with incomes over $100,000 per year had similar answers to those making less than $50,000. (The report has helpful, multi-colored charts.)
The respondents were presented with unlabeled pie charts representing the wealth distributions of the U.S., where the richest 20 percent controlled about 84 percent of wealth, and Sweden, where the top 20 percent only controlled 36 percent of wealth. Without knowing which country they were picking, 92 percent of respondents said they'd rather live in a country with Sweden's wealth distribution.
As the new Forbes billionaires list, released Wednesday, testifies, the richest Americans are getting richer, even as the country as a whole gets poorer. After 2005 income inequality continued to balloon.
READ the study:
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113 Comments so far
Show Alli have often thought that americans as a people are really quite, frankly, STUPID.
that's it, no other word. STUPID. surrounded and enveloped in lots and lots of supposedly "advanced" civilization and all its machines and technology and "progress" and even claims of "ideas" and "ingenuity"
but fundamentally -- STUPID.
they are like a kid given a match and proceeds to play with it - by burning things and he thinks he is being clever.
what i DO tell friends or people i know is , to make it milder:
"americans are so EASY to FOOL in the things that actually harm themselves and others...all you have to do is appeal to their greed and selfishness and bloated sense of importance if you carefully enough say it in the most genuine "american" way....".
I am basically in agreement with what you have written. Time after time Americans will advocate and vote on issues and candidates that are simply anathema to their own self-interests while allowing themselves to become swayed by the dulcet tones of a politician like Barack Obama.
Considering that the choice was either Barack Obama and Joseph Biden or John McCain and Alfred E. Neuman, the fact that the margin of victory wasn't even larger is an argument for the stupidity of the American electorate.
Stupid? How dare you be so biased, prejudiced, and ill informed!
Of course we DO have stupid people here. I would never deny that - there's far too many of us for us to not statistically end up with some very stupid ones, but to dare say that we all are collectively stupid, I cannot even say what I want to say, because it would be beneath me.
I think your arrogance and hateful presumptive comments warrant you being banned from here, or severely thrashed, sir.
Every accusation you make, as you imply it fits all of us, is nothing less than a lie. Many of us know full well what is going on, and loath our politicians, but do you know what I get when I write my state representatives in Congress that I do not like what they are voting for? I get told, in a form letter, somewhat tactfully, to basically go stuff it.
Case in point: I am a ex-RN, 25 years of experience, disabled on oxygen. Recently, they made drastic changes to who well they will cover my respiratory therapy, and it was not good changes. The owner of the company that provides me with my oxygen went to speak with our Congressional representatives, along with her peers.
One of them refused to speak to them at all, would not listen to their case, even though they had traveled to Washington DC to his office.
The other one sent out a young assistance, who said that his boss, that Congressman, did not believe in voting for "disease specific" legislature, and he walked away.
"Disease specific"? I don't even know what he thinks that means, as the list of diagnoses that qualifies one for needing home oxygen is long: COPD, lung cancer, in my case Idiopathic Lung Syndrome, and a lot more.
So much for "disease specific"!
Does that make me stupid, easily fooled, greedy, selfish as you allege? Does that mean I have a "bloated sense of importance"?
Furthermore, I am well aware, as most of my friends are, that there is no such thing as the "American way," and that such a concept is little more than an attempt at manipulation.
That said, I think you need to rather shut up, since you do not know what you are talking about - saying we are all collectively as you accuse. Your prejudiced ignorance is appalling.
When someone says "americans as a people" that means they are speaking in general, on average. It doesn't mean they're speaking about you specifically, and it doesn't mean they're claiming that there are no exceptions to the generalization they are about to make.
In general, on average, as evidenced by voting records and many other things, Americans are pretty stupid. That's not a controversial statement - maybe you should get over yourself.
I think you misunderstood what you just read, and are (I hate to say this) making *yourself* look stupid. Not to mention doing that retired nurse a serious injustice.
Note that the study --using a sample that's representative of *ALL* USAians-- found that people want less inequality. More fairness. That finding supports and is supported by *all* the cross-cultural research being done using the Ultimatum Game and similar tools, and supports and is supported by the *repeated* findings from NORC, Pew, etc. that *most* USAians are, as Chomsky frequently points out, much further to the left than we're relentlessly told we are.
The problem is that the system is rigged.
Patrick Henry, in denouncing the proposed Constitution and urging that Virginia not ratify it (despite the pro-slavery and inflated-representation douceurs) laid it out chapter and verse: only the rich would be able to be elected to federal office, and, once elected, they would represent their class alone and gradually arrogate all power to themselves without regard to the consequences.
To overcome that rigging is probably still possible without bloodshed, but it would take years of grim, hard, unceasing work by a lot of completely dedicated people. People willing to put their current life on hold, or perhaps abandon it altogether, to focus on changing the system. Not many people are that dedicated because not many people are truly adult.
There's a saying from Roman times (referred to by the philologist interviewed by Mayer in _They Thought They Were Free_): "Finem respice et principiis obsta": foresee the ending and resist the beginning.
But it takes a strong and pessimistic imagination to really foresee and *accept* that (e.g.) we're slowly bringing Earth to the final tipping point or (e.g.) that our rulers are psychopaths who don't give a goddamn about us and are even willing to "kill us all as long as they are the last to die" (Diamond, _Collapse_). It's that acceptance, and that acceptance alone, that has the power to motivate us.
Most of us will do anything to avoid having to accept such things, just as we do anything to avoid having to accept -*really* accept- that one day we personally will cease to exist. It's an adult thing, and most of us are not really adults. And so we cling to the belief that "someone" (Daddy, Mommy, God, The Government, the scriptwriters) will come along and save us at the last minute. Politicians are really doing their best for us, scientists will figure out a way for us to have our cake and eat it too, and we'll all live forever in Heaven.
Except that they're not, and they won't, and we won't. And so we have a hard choice. Every day, the same hard choice.
"There is nothing more difficult to do, nor more uncertain of success, than to institute a new order of things in the world. For all those who profit from the current order will be your bitter enemies, while those who would profit by the new way will be but lukewarm supporters" (Nick M., _The Prince_)
I don't think he misunderstood anything. If you want more evidence for the stupidity of the American electorate, you have provided it in spades.
("... study --using a sample that's representative of *ALL* USAians-- found that people want less inequality. More fairness.") And then they go and elect people who not only give them the exact opposite, but are up front about how they are going to give them the exact opposite.
"Most of us will do anything to avoid having to accept such things"
Can't think of a much better definition of stupidity. What percentage of the American public are climate change deniers? Especially when the evidence is all around them!!!
You're conflating immaturity with stupidity. People can, with considerable effort, choose to grow up, become less ignorant, etc...but they can't choose to become smarter. Stupidity is a "hardware" problem, and is immutable at our current state of knowledge.
If we define what's going on as being the result of stupidity, we few who are, self-congratulatorily, perceptive and non-stupid are conveniently absolved of the need to do anything. Who benefits from that?
"Stupidity is a "hardware" problem, and is immutable at our current state of knowledge."
Mairead,
Love it....mind if I use that?
I think most Americans accept climate change, what they question is the cause.
Does that make them Stupid?
Yes.
Being unable to distinguish the rigorous work of a thousand highly-trained scientists from the opinions of a handful of poeple in the popular media who don't even have a degree in any sort of science at all, is stupidity.
We both know that highly-trained scientists have differing
views on this subject.
According to current surveys, more than 80% of climate scientists are convinced that human activity is a significant driver of global warming. Among those actively conducting research on climate change, more than 90% believe that human activity is involved. You can base your views on the outliers, if you like, but that's a basically stupid approach, in my opinion.
yes -- the PROBLEM is that things are rigged.
but think of it another way.
AREN'T political matters or "elections" just about anywhere in the world rigged, one way or another?.
the point being:
KNOWING that things are rigged...americans have a greater capacity than more "electorates" to go ahead and PARTICIPATE in it - as a matter of FREE CHOICE - compared to actually CHOOSING to go out, in MASSIVE, MASSIVE demonstrations (for example: the French DO IT..they put work stoppages, the students STOP things in the city and the police can't do a DAMN thing about it until sarkozy STOPS his attempt to raise---- uh....REGISTRATION FEES!!!)....
what do the Americans do? why -- they VOTE and participate in the outright , unbelievably OBVIOUS rigged elections and politics and show they FEAR their politicans and their state aparatus. and then they mill about and mew that "it's rigged".
that's NOT an excuse.
afghanistan has MASSIVE RIGGED elections.
the afghans - considering they don't even HAVE an infrastructure for just about anything...simply -- show their DISDAIN by REFUSING to vote EN MASSE.
of course it doesn't turn their country into one that has "jobs, industries". etc. by doing that....but that is STILL showing their WILL and saying:
\
"WE DON"T LIKE YOU KARZAI...you are a PUPPET of the USA...and we stay at home and follow OUR OWN RULES as we always have".
in other words -- the "primitive, backward" afghans DO NOT EXCHANGE their will with MERE CONVENIENCES and even "advancement and progress".
compared to americans -- they are GENIUSES! and show they see the world with REAL eyes....not through LENSES of rose-colored tint "hoping" that the RIGGED ELECTIONS are going to be "better" if they only "participated" and 'wrote my congressman'...and "go by the rules" --- going to work, feeding the family, paying the bank .....
but in NONE OF THEM MOVING ANY INCH CLOSER to changing their own country from being RIGGED AGAINST THEM
because they are SO TIMID as a MASS , as a PEOPLE,
to excercis what Americans GLOAT and BRAG and SHOUT to the world , sending even their big armies to PROMOTE IT -- as being a people who "exercise CHOICE". ..and whose choices are RIGGED! and they KNOW IT.
so what are we really talking about?
A PEOPLE that claims it is FREE but COMPLAINS that it can't "choose" because things are "Rigged" because IT PARTICIPATED IN THE CONSTRUCTION and MAINTAINANCE of that same RIGGED SOCIETY!
GIMME A BREAK!
so what do we have to call it - IF NOT STUPID? AND COWARDLY?
americans - for all the things that surround them as tools to exercise their WILL -
are like a boy that has everything - and keeps complaining that he has nothing...but then brags to his friends that he's got a LOT of things THEY DON'T HAVE!!
what a moron !
Who benefits if we choose to define the problem as one of widespread stupidity? What's the payoff for that, and who gets it?
Mairead..like you -- i grappled with the definition :
"Stupid or immature" .
but do you REALLY think the contention HERE is about WHAT to call it? and what is the pay-off?
how SHOULD i know? i simply expressed what I have concluded to be the case. it is up to americans -- as I put it - AS A PEOPLE - to do what they OUGHT to know by now..after decades and decades of tests and the conclusions of the CONSEQUENCES of their COLLECTIVE choices accumulated from the individual or parochial choices (for example: the OIL Crisis of the 1970's - americans REJECTED carter for saying things they didn't want to HEAR, with or without reagan whispering to them to follow HIM) .
Immature is when someone is simply not grown up enough - and needs more information and education and then IF HE PERSISTS -- he is STUPID.
WHICH ONE is "americans"?
americans are PROUD to call their country and themselves as the world's MOST ADVANCED and MATURE DEMOCRACY!!!!
oooooooooooooooooo
so -- what happened to THAT?
the only thing LEFT - when you "deduce" - and as sherlock holmes would say:
"if you remove everything that is not possible -- the only thing that is left is the possible".........
the only thing LEFT -- as I decided after mulling things for half an hour before commiting my words:
STUPID PEOPLE! for choosing IMMATURITY over maturity when they OUGHT to have known better for being a country they BRAG about as being "MATURE and most advanced".
if you are a tennis player that KNOWS - that if you HIT to your opponent's STRONGEST shot and know that he's going to EAT UP the ball -- and STILL you do it, again and again and again....
no matter that your MATURE KNOWLEDGE says you SHOULDN"T ...
what does that make you?
you are STUPID!
but do you REALLY think the contention HERE is about WHAT to call it? and what is the pay-off?
-----------------------------------
Of course! Because --and I know you know this because you've said so yourself in the past-- the answers we get depend on the questions we ask. And the questions we ask depend on the assumptions we make.
What *possible* good can it do us to believe we're defeated in advance? That the rest of the population are Lumpenvolk who will always overwhelm us with their self-destructive stupidity and prevent us, the Hochbegabte, doing anything to better the situation?
The elites' 24/7/365.25 drumbeat is that we have no alternative *at all* to their hegemony, not even violent revolution. That no matter what we do, we will fail because we are few, isolated, alone, and, yes, *stupid* for even thinking about it.
I don't accept that, nor am I willing to agree with anyone who does, or who urges any of the precursors to that conclusion. There's *no* evidence for it, and it's psychotogenic besides. From everything you've written in the past, I can't see how you can possibly accept it either.
People are poorly educated, propagandised to a fare-thee-well, and hemmed in by carefully constructed walls of ignorance, bought-and-paid-for law, custom, and violence. But, as Alinsky demonstrated when he organised Back Of The Yards, *if* people are given the opportunity to *really* take personal control of their political situation, they eagerly do so. At first only the most receptive but then, as others see it's not just another scam, in an exponentially-increasing flood.
It's hard work, but it's not rocket science.
Excellent response, and welcome back, Mairead.
Paul D.
A literate, cogent comment. I have little to add, except to remark that the study reported here illustrates the power of wishful thinking. Across all demographic divisions (and against virtually all the evidence) Americans believe that reality is closer to their desire than it actually is.
The same thing was reflected in a survey conducted years ago, which asked respondents to estimate their own position in the overall wealth/ income 1distribution of the United States. Nearly 20% of the population believed that they were among the top 5%. Another 20% recognized that they were not among the top 5%, but anticipated that they eventually would be.
In other words, even if Americans understood the economic consequences of their political decisions (a big assumption) and based their votes on their own perceived self interest, more than a third would consistently vote against themselves.
Good post! Americans are barraged with pro-corporate propaganda 24/7, not just in the MSM, but in various degrees, in every institution we have. Most people don't have time to be news junkies - let alone read books critical of our system. It is true that the political consciousness of most Americans is not very developed, but we need to engage people where they are - not where they are not. Calling most Americans stupid is elitist and counter productive. If we are ever to create a mass movement we are gonna need a whole lot of what many on this forum call "stupid" people.
"Pro-corporate propaganda" is conservative propaganda. These conservative talking points (free markets, low taxes, no regulation, no unions etc.) are continually spewed by both Republicans and Democrats.
We have government of the corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation.
The problem rm8471 has is that she/he has very limited choice in representation in government. Most Americans believe they can only vote Democrat or Republican, anything else is "throwing away your vote." Americans should start to exercise their rights under their democracy and vote for someone other than D or R.
RE: The problem rm8471 has is that she/he has very limited choice in representation in government.
Her problem belongs to all of us as well. It's not really true that you or I have more choices, it is that we refuse the non-choices we are given. The freedom to choose between Coke and Pepsi is not freedom. We all need to work together so that we can have real choices. If we could choose social democracy like Sweden has (for the moment), we wouldn't be having this conversation. As is often said, "if capitalism were reformable, there would be no need for socialism."
Have you been to the vote.org site? We are working towards true social democracy there. Please have a look.
If you want evidence that "no one ever went broke by underestimating the stupidity of the American public (H.L. Mencken)," then look at the following that Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Fox in general, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and this O'Donnell person have. On top of that add the tea partiers. Not a single one of those followers can give a cogent reason for their position, and when you analyze it, it turns out that they are pushing the corporatist agenda. It is NOT difficult to see this. It does not take incredible brain power. To not be able to see it is rank stupidity, nothing less.
If the American public weren't generally stupid, would whackjobs like Steve King, Michelle Bachmann, James DeMint, Eric Cantor, Joe Barton, Marsha Blackburn, Dan Burton, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Mike Pence, James Sensenbrenner, Pete Sessions, Jim Bunning, Tom Coburn, James Inhofe, Joseph Lieberman and their ilk ever be elected in the first place, let alone be reelected?! If you think that Texas seems to be overrepresented on the list of whackjobs, you should see our state lege, and let's not even mention the State Board of Education.
So anyone with a different Worldview then yours is Stupid?
Good one,Texas but some posters here need to take a chill pill before their BP pegs the meter....reminds me of Forrest Gump...something like "Stupid is as Stupid does."
Would that Molly Ivins could have lived to see the hole the collective Amurikans have dug for themselves and their posterity. Reckon she'd have a field day with the likes of Beck, Hannity, Billo, O'Donnel, Palin, Angle, Bachmann, and yes, even the Obama clan of distilled stupidity....just fill in the blanks, I'm tired.
exTex
True enough, but they are still stupid. Adlai Stevenson told an admirer who said, "All thinking people support you." with "That's not enough. I need a majority."
The American people are STOOPIT by design.
It's no "accident" that in the 1950's and 1960's students in American high schools could generally READ and we were compelled to do so.
In my mid-west high school we were made to sit and read The Cleveland Plain Dealer every morning, to clip the most interesting article then write a page about why we were interested in it.
Today most high school students not only do not read a newspaper either in print or on-line, they have not been TAUGHT TO CARE WHETHER THEY DO OR NOT.
High school history textbooks are filled with boring dis-information and lies. One will rarely have a high school history teacher recommend "A Peoples History of The United States" to his/her students.
Instead American youth are being raised on propaganda, "Halo", Facebook, drugs, alcohol, mindless sex (mainly anal and oral) from age 10 up, disgusting misongynous rap music, garbage processed muck masquerading as "food", violent sports ad nauseum and other mind-numbing teevee programing.
DUH!!!!
Taught to be ROBOTIC CONSUMERS INSTEAD OF INVOLVED CITIZENS, the youth of America is on it's way to rendering our country into one giant, brainless mess of "humanity" instead of the leaders of the planet helping guide mankind toward a desperately needed evolutionary leap in consciousness and truth.
You've got to give "the powers that be" credit. They've done a PERFECT JOB of brain-washing us.
W.C. Fields was right: "Never give a sucker an even break".
Ditto! (the Stupid sentiment) Politically - and in a lot of other ways - Americans are the STUPIDest Population in the whole Western World.
thank you teddy.....................
you;re welcome.
believe me, I CHOSE and mulled my CHOICE of word: STUPID - for half an hour BEFORE i decided to do it. but I could simply NOT FIND a better one, simpler and more TO THE POINT without the
very AMERICAN "gentleness" with words that define things that NEED to be defined for what they REALLY are .
i give an example -- and for the record -- I AM about as "american" as Anyone for having lived here for over 26 years and HAVE SEEN to my horror how it has collectively DEGENERATED - especially intellectually and moraly (and I don't mean RELIGION). and I LOVE the country and the people and the friends I have made. and it BREAKS MY HEART to see these things happening.
THEREFORE - just like that great american author, James Baldwin - i TOO must say:
I LOVE AMERICA SO MUCH that I MUST criticize her!
and if THAT means saying it as i SEE IT..i WILL.
but an example of what I was refering to about some NOT LIKING my use of the word "stupid"....
is:
american culture has had a very strange adoptation of language. in that
where a SECRETARY can be called such ...to make it sound more GLAMOROUS - it is now "Assistant to the Director"...
go further and see where you get:
SOFTENING the impact and TRUE nature of POLLUTION by calling it "Blue Skies initiative".
go further : TORTURE becomes "extraordinary rendition" and SELDOM do the majority or ordinary americans ACTUALLY GO UP IN ANGER at what their nation has stood for -- TORTURE....
because, STUPIDLY ENOUGH - for all their claims about righteousness and greatness --
they have their heads buried in their navels...and it's TOO INCONVENIENT to deal with TORTURE!!!
isn't THAT stupidity - when after all its blowbacks - among many other blowbacks - americans THEN COMPLAIN about WHY THINGS ARE LIKE THAT?
i say -- YOU MADE IT LIKE THAT, it's NOT JUST the corporate leaderships, OR the politicians OR the "system"
YOU MADE IT LIKE THAT -- you even GLORIFIED IN IT and BRAGGED ABOUT IT when there were PLENTY of chances to QUESTION IT as a MAJORITY rather than having to ostracise and marginalize the ones that WARNED YOU - even when you saw them DIE and get arrested and assassinated FOR YOUR SAKES!
so --- you , in general are STUPID PEOPLE.
you - NEVER LEARN!
I was born and raised here -- my grandfather came to this country from Austria -- and I can't argue with you on any of it. I've seen it myself. I wish I was brave enough to say all the things I feel about what has happened to my country just in my short lifetime. But, I will say this one thing that seems to be the biggest problem with too many of my fellow Americans -- they are close-minded -- seriously close-minded.
it was probably evident even long ago: from being overly confident about the "new land" where they thought they could do wahtever they wished as some kind of godgiven right..
and Alexis de Tocqueville -- the french writer and thinker (that newt gingrich adores but somehow seems to have missed this remark) - described in his visit:
"AMERICANS -- are a people with an amazing amount of RELIGIOUS fanaticism and ignorance".
TRANSFER that characteristic t0 being "RELIGIOUSLY FANATIC" about BEING 'american'
and you get everything ELSE:
the overblown belief in "our greatness"...religiously adhered to no matter what.
religious fanaticism to "our individualism"
religious fanaticism to "our free market"....
religious fanaticism to "our CHOICE"....
religious fanaticism to "MY private property rights"....
and keep on going ............
teddy, chill out bro...open a 40...we get the message.
haha...i was going to go get a beer and sit and watch the ocean in coney island beach -until someone told me:
"no -- you can't drink beer on the boardwalk" ..they have stores that sell beer right there and you can't drink beer in public......
geez!
teddy: Are you aware that your caps key is sticking in an apparently random fashion? You might want to get that fixed. It makes your prose look ridiculous, as if you suffer from a printed form of Tourette's Syndrome.
I concur with the stupid argument.
How can people be given so much evidence of something and still think that it's not true?
Whether it's global warming or that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11.
A large chunk of our population is what I call 'Aggressively Ignorant'. They don't know the truth and they don't want to know the truth. They want what their leaders have spoon-fed them to be re-enforced to fit their worldview.
They like to believe that they can get something for nothing and that the laws of physics and economics don't apply to us.
Having such a large portion of our society with this worldview can do nothing but damage to us and the world.
Fanned!
And fanned again, to wit; the housing "crisis" as evidence of the collective ignorance of Amurikans....and have a look at today's article on Yahoo about
some "poor folk" being broke/in debt while making $250K/year.
These are the words I hear at home when I try to talk about what I've read: I don't want to think about that, it's too negative, it is what it is -- and so on. I feel very lonely much of the time.
The paper the article reports about has absolutely no discussion about "Building a Better America," which is as I suspected as one of its authors instructs at the Harvard Business School--the enemy of all working Americans.
I see it differently. We tend to forget that many people have a strong sense of fairness and perhaps we are beginning to see a rejection of the greed is good culture that has been rammed down our throats since 1980.
Plus, there is a growing amount of evidence to suggest that the American people as a whole (as opposed to fringe groups that have media support) are not lurching to the right; in fact, polls have been fairly clear that they believe that the wealthiest should be taxed more heavily than they are currently and that the government should not be giving tax dollars to the wealthiest corporations. I believe that people are beginning to see through the holes of "trickle down economics"--and after thirty years, are rejecting the belief that giving money to the wealthy and the corporations will improve our economy. It does not; our economy is very weak despite decades of throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of the wealthy and the corporations. Talk about a policy failure!
When are we going to start speaking that truth?
When are we going to return to a policy of fairness?
one problem with calling most people here 'stupid' is that it makes us 'smart' people working class, academic elite whomever, NEVER attempt to do mass organizing..cuz well why bother?
americans are stupid! Ive heard this over and over even from the anarchist/socialist left.
Obviously there is a large and very effective propaganda system since day of birth...through school, through the universities...and reinforced by media, peer groups, workplace etc.
With NO mass bottom up non leninist left to counteract it.
so looking at it that way.....we're actually all are NOT that stupid. Because even under this massive indoctrinal system....most of us, are to the LEFT of all democrats....
and even though most people support wars initially (most do in every country usually)...most then turn against them EVEN THOUGH THE MEDIA and politicians are covering up the facts still.
That takes some capacity for critical thinking.
as does....a majority wanting more socialism (whatever that means in the american mind) even though through all ENTIRE lives "socialism' has been associated with totalitarian states like USSR etc...
hmmm....
Some people are obviously dangerously stupid....Like the tea party people....but all democracies have ALWAYS had a base of yes working class...and most upper class that desire fascism....this is nothing new...and hardly american.
one problem with calling most people here 'stupid' is that it makes us 'smart' people working class, academic elite whomever, NEVER attempt to do mass organizing..cuz well why bother?
--------------------------------
bingo.
--------------------------------
americans are stupid! Ive heard this over and over even from the anarchist/socialist left.
--------------------------------
and isn't *that* some scary evidence of how completely we've been mystified!
Thank you for your thoughts, Tommy.
I agree with you..and the more that I am distressed about these things because America ALSO is MY country now. I love the country, i love the people, they are WHO i see everyday -- and they ARE as much MINE as would be any people where I lived. it HURTS - really it does, and every week never goes by that I don't shed tears, LITERALLY, seeing people without jobs, reading about families with their little children reported to have no dinner, imagining peope walking the streets, facing their friends PRETENDING that "everything is OK" and putting on a smiley face - but their stomachs are growling because their wages aren't enough and they haven't eaten from tightening their belt to pay for a cellphone bill or the apartment or a room....etc. etc. etc.........
i HURTS because i DO believe that americans - LIKE PEOPLE everywhere are NOT inherently "lazy" the way republicans say about everyone BUT republican BUMS themselves! or until disasters hit their own families.
and americans SHOULD NOT have to be made to go through such strife in their lives and instead be empowered to be ABLE TO HELP other people and nations in a true, honest way.
THAT hurts. it hurt that I once saw a handwritten note on a hallway bulletin board in my work place -- a Nurse was asking, begging, for help from friends:
she had worked all her life, was soon to retire, but her coverage didn't cover her grown up daughter of course..her daughter recently married in her 40's with a nice guy -- both had jobs BUT no coverage...her daughter traveled to africa to help poor people because she was some kind of missionary. or something on the side besides her job...
and then she had brain cancer and can't afford even the TESTS.
so the mother (nurse) was reduced to BEGGING for help and contributions on a bulletin board. a NURSE that couldn't even helpt her OWN daughter because of what the country is like?
HOW CAN THAT BE in the Greatest country on earth? the one that brags about being "advanced" and "mature?"
so I feel so distressed about seeing all that.
teddy, a seriously great post...thanks!
Stupid-- or stupefied.
bingo.
phasor-
"Government of the corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation."
You are 100% on target with this. If we applied the remedy globally, 98% of the world's population would be far better-off. The great mystery here is: why does the 98% majority bow down to the 2% greedy minority? In some cases, I'm sure that some are terminally stupid. But what about the others: Could it fear? Certainly. Could it be mental illness? Certainly a few. Could it be wannabeism? Some know that there is a greedy 2% and they would like to part of the greedy 3%. Absolutely. Quite a large number here. Could it be laziness? Of this I am certain. Some people just don't want to apply their energy. They are content with their vegetative status. Add a few more reasons for the 98% majority's reasons for doing nothing about the enequity and the mystery might be solved.
How do we create a common cause for all to rally a more balanced world? How about accepting justice as the common denominator. Most claim to want justice. Let us all just do what we claim to believe in. Work for justice.
work for land and freedom.liberty equality and fraternity. ....all these left cliches actually mean ...we must organize to end capitalism....but how to do that? and how to get twenty million emailing smart americans, of both bottom classes, to get off their and think of direct action, general strikes...and alignment with the "dangerous" anarchists like me?
you must believe in the impossible....just to get a few gains.....you must believe in the peoples' general....oh god...
I give up....
the people will only move within the conduit of face to face democracy, with mutual aid. Knowledge, or access to knowledge does not free us.
only action, bottom up, does....THEN knowledge becomes a weapon. WHEN you actually have face to face sharing of it.
get off these computers.....